Giacomo Benevelli

Who was Giacomo Benevelli?

Giacomo Benevelli was an Italian sculptor.

He was brought up in France. He lived and worked for over forty years in Milan.

He was the nephew of Anselmo Govi, a painter from Reggio Emilia, who painted the fresco of the dome of the Teatro Ariosto. He belonged to a local Northern Italian aristocratic family previously known as Benedelli. He was the cousin of Emidio Benevelli, the founder of Benevelli Transaxles.

Since 1957 Benevelli exhibited in Italy and worldwide. His first US exhibition was in 1963 at the Felix Landau Gallery in Los Angeles. In 1964 he was invited to the 42nd Venice International Art Biennale with a group of sculptures. In 1966 he was appointed as head of the sculpture courses at the Accademia di Brera in Milan. Between the late 1960s and the early 1970s he created a series of lamp-sculpture, the most famous is the Roto lamp and Arabesque. In 2009 he started a collaboration with the worldwide design and furniture brand Natuzzi in the newly created Natuzzi Open Art, a space dedicated to the collaboration between art and design. Benevelli created a new line of art-objects which first premiered at the Cologne Trade Fair, Salone del Mobile and at the AD Home Show in New York.